A little Crippy Craft Action

 

These are the stockings that I created for a friend of mine. The designs were loosely (very loosely!) inspired by a sample stocking that she had from when she was a kid.

A couple of things I would do differently if I were to do these again -- make sure that the writing on the cuff was consistently lined up. The two boys' names don't look too bad, but "Dad" is very askew. One of the reasons behind this -- I had to create several cuffs to try to get the names to look right. I wrote the names before they were attached to the rest of the stocking. What's the saying? "Measure once, cut twice"...err..."Measure Twice, cut once". That would have helped me. :-) Since I was on a really tight deadline (they had to be in her hot little fist by Thanksgiving!), I didn't have time to rewrite and redo the cuffs.

Second thing I would do differently -- the faces! Ideally, they would be painted on, rather than made out of felt. I would also muck around with them a bit more to get them a bit less creepy.

Oh, and since someone will probably mention this, the reason "Mrs. Claus" is dressed a little crazier than the typical Mrs. Claus, was by request of my friend -- shorter skirt and high heels. I hope she wasn't joking!

Thought of the Day #292 - Stockings

I'm in the middle of a Christmas stocking project for a friend of mine.
Four stockings with different festive motifs that need to get to her by
Thanksgiving. The pressure is on and I'm finding my glitter glue skills
are sorely lacking!

Actually finishing some Quilts!

I started and finished the baby quilt last week and finally, after probably a year and a half, finished the queen size quilt shown below. Yeah, sometimes, they're quick and easy...sometimes I have brain blockages. The baby quilt was my first attempt at "machine quilting". Turned out okie, I think. The queen size quilt is hand tied and quilted along the edge for a little extra stability. It's good to finally get that one done.

 

 

 

Thought of the Day #273 - Analog v. Digital

I genuinely enjoy analog pursuits where I get my hands dirty, but I
really, really wish there was an "undo" button.

While I was away....

...the jams I made this year suddenly organized themselves. Ok, ok...Ivan did it. It was a crazy jammin' year:

 

 

Thought of the Day #183 - Etsy Things

I've added a few things to my Etsy shop tonight 'cuz I purchased a 'showcase' on the site for the 7th. It's basically a cheap way to advertise your wares on the site. 7 dollars gets ya a full 24 hours of extra exposure. $7 for 24 on 7/7. Definitely sounds like gambling. Anyway, that's what's on my mind...Etsy and of course, my Crippy Crafts!

A new baby quilt

 

 

I was hunting around for some cute baby boy fabric for a new quilt a couple of weeks ago and came across this cute robot/rocket fabric by David Walker for Free Spirit fabrics. It's boyish, but not cloyingly so. I love the brightness of the orange and red with the baby blue, too. Soo, soo cute. I found it on Etsy.com, and immediately placed an order. I received the fabric last week, started workin' on the little quilt. Little quilts make for such quick work! I made a HUGE number of mistakes on it, and even ran out of thread while trying to fix previous errors, but all in all, it turned out pretty well. The boxes are meant to be "random", but with only six styles of fabrics in there, it almost seems to get pattern-y at places. Ah, well, what can ya do when you don't want to "over plan" something?

Newest Crippy Craft

 

I put this on Etsy a few weeks ago, but neglected to post it here. It's my favorite floral Crippy yet. Enjoy!

A few new Crippy Crafts added to Etsy.com

	I had a recent burst of creative energy and created these three Crippy Crafts™. All are for sale and full viewing at http://catay.etsy.com. In other Etsy news, I've updated my jam selection to include the full 32 flavors from this year's canning sessions. LOTS of new flavors to try. Apricot Butter Apricot Jam Apricot-Orange Conserve Apricot-Pineapple Jam Blueberry Jam Blueberry Lime Jam Brandied Peach Jam Chocolate Raspberry Spread Ginger-Saturn Peach Jam Hot Pepper Jam Peach Jalapeno Jam Peach Butter Peach Rum Jam w/ Brown Sugar Peach Jam Plum Conserve Plum Jam Plum Preserves Raspberry Jam Raspberry-Peach Jam Raspberry-Cherry Jam Raspberry-Jalapeno Jam Raspberry-Lime Jam Raspberry-Orange Jam Raspberry-Pineapple Jam Raspberry-Saturn Peach Jam Saturn Peach Jam Spiced Saturn Peach Jam Strawberry Jam Strawberry-Lime Jam Strawberry-Raspberry Jam Tomato Preserves (a little loose-set) White Peach Jam That's a LOTTTA jamming. A record setting year. Check out the jams here.

Updates on Etsy

I've added a few more Crippy Crafts to Etsy. Check 'em out:

Etsy is Fast!

I listed a crippy craft tree on Etsy last night at around midnight. By this morning, it sold! Yippee, skippy! My niece who sells some items on Etsy gave me a good idea on how to list the artwork -- list things over a long period. Say, for instance, one a day. It gives your shop greater exposure on the site due to the number of Etsy browsing tools that put items in listed order. It gets your shop ~out there~ for a greater number of shoppers. I think it makes sense. Maybe. Could be. :-)

Moonlighting

I feel like a jack of all trades these days. First, I'm up late tonight moonlighting for a non-profit legal association. Just working on a few brochures for them in InDesign. I'm no Adobe InDesign expert, but I do find it fun to work in. It makes me think of all the fun brochure-sy things I could do if I ran my own company or organization. It's also another dandy skill to have if I lose my day job.

Secondly, I've been getting quite a few orders on Etsy. I've sold 31 jars so far. Yahooo! I haven't received my Crippy Crafts back from Minneapolis, yet, but I have high hopes that they will sell ~ok~ on there too. There's one Estsian who sells similar goods for ~$130/a pop. I don't have plans to charge nearly that much, so hopefully my wee papery art will move on there.

Finally, it's a beeeyatch to pay taxes on contracting gigs...especially if they're digitally based. I did a significant amount of graphic design work for a company in Oregon last year. I have VERY little I can "write-off" as business expenses. My software and internet connection is all paid for by my day job. My office isn't solely an office for work, so no go on that write-off. I ended up writing off some blank CDs, paper and mailing supplies. WooF'ingHoo. Here Governement, have some more money. I know we've got a war to pay for, so why can't I chip in a bit more? What? Bend over? Oh, ok...sure I can help....

Real quick like...Good and Bad Commerce

I sold five jars of jam on Etsy! Apparently Etsy does work for such things. Yahoo! That was the good news. The bad news... none of my crippy crafts sold at the art show in Minneapolis. Boo. Onto Etsy they go when they come back home. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! http://catay.etsy.com --like the jams are here. like.

Can I call it Art yet? Nah...still Crippy Craft!

    I've been working on more Crippy Craft for my work's "Art Show". They've had the art show for several years and I have yet to be in town for it, so I have no idea how much of it is crafty and how much is art. The line between the two is so often blurred as I believe it is in my stuff, but I am curious to see what others are showing/sellling. If these Crippy craft don't sell there, I will be putting them up on Etsy. I think they'll have a good shot of finding a good home there. By the way, I've been dabbling with the beauty of velum in these illustrations -- the transluscent nature lends itself well to adding additional detail and depth.

Another Crippy Craft

...this is from last night's craft fest. Whee!

By the way, I've got some jams listed at Etsy -- finally! I hope to have the rest listed shortly. Jam on, everyone!http://catay.etsy.com/

More Cut Paper Illustration!

Because I thought you'd like to know...

Don't forget, you can get the all-too-crafty "HowTo" instructions here. (linky stinky!)

More Crippy Craft and a HOW TO for the Layered Cut Paper Illustration!

I haven't shipped all of my Crippy Craft gifties yet, but the ones above have already been given away. I'm on a roll, but it's an incomplete roll, unfortunately. I've got three left to do! I did want to get these on here with the "HOW TO" before I get any more complete.

As a little background, I was looking in mid-December for some sort of homemade Crippy Craft that I could as gifts. I came across A Little Hut (click here to visit A Little Hut), and was instantly inspired. She does beautiful work! A couple of my pieces above are a directly inspired by her pieces. Little Red Riding hood, the leaves, and somewhat the deer pieces are directly inspired. (I hope she doesn't mind!) The rest have been just things that popped in my head when I thought about the recipient or just thought would make a beautiful illustration.

If you're interested in doing some "art-pieces" or "Crippy Craft" like those above, click here for full HOW-TO instructions.

Crippy Crafts and Holiday Greetings

Sorry for the extended holiday silence. I've been working on Crippy Craft gifties, with which I'm a good two weeks behind. I'll show more of these when they're all done:

 

and just enjoying the views of the holidays.:

 

I love the warm glow of the tree. It's so blasted hard to get a good photo of it, though.

I hope you're all having a lovely holiday season!

I Hab a Code

 

The purely sucky part of the holidays -- getting together with sickly relatives and friends, and taking a bit of phlegm/goo/bug/spit home with you. Yeah, no bueno. I started the cold on Saturday and it's just progressed ever so nicely to today where now I'm just a jiggling pile of goo. I know that it will be over soon, and I really was due. Ivan had two colds this year that I was able to avoid, so yeah, it was time.

The Crippy Craft item shown above was done by my step-daughter. I thought it was clever and cute, and oh so fall-ish! Here's what you'll need -- 1 fake leaf, a wooden heart, an orange pipecleaner, a walnut (unshelled), a filbert (I think that's what it is), a triangle of orange felt, a throat wattle made of red felt and two beady eyes, hot glue. Assemble these to look like a turkey. Voila! Crippy Crafts at their best!

Invites of Halloween Past

As mentioned in the post below, here are invites from the past few years. I'm especially fond of the 2003 pop-up invite. It's still, by far, my favorite. I always browse online for Halloween inspiration, so I'm hoping maybe, just maybe, this may inspire someone else. Gotta give back, ya know!

2003	2004
2005	2006

I don't have a "final" copy of last year's invite, so I recreated it with the beta copy in addition, I pasted in a graphic that initially was placed on the inside door. Pretty close to how it actually looked, methinks.

Feelin' Spooky

Here's the cover to my annual Halloween Party invite. I tried to go with a creepier, spoookier feel than previous years. For instance, last year's was constructed of construction paper, velum and a sweet lookin' Frankenstein holding a bowl of candy. Dang...I should show some previous year's invites on here. Sometimes they turn out pretty cool...sometimes lame. Each year it's a little bit different depending upon my mood and the amount of time I have available. This year, not so much time, but plenty of creep running through my veins.

The photos used to make this composite include a VERY spooky abandoned house from central Minnesota. The others were from istockphoto.com (click here to see my stock portfolio there, and to sign up!) The majority of the layered photos were the freebie photos that they give away each week to members...if you were a member, you could get freebies too! Don't ya love the sweet peer-pressure soft-sell?? I use istock for work all the time. Cheap prices and a usually a myriad of choices for each project. They aren't very profitable for people who sell photos on there -- typically you get only 20 cents for each 640x280 size photo you sell, but it does add up. I've made 220 bucks over the last two years and really haven't uploaded anything new in a year or so...so yeah, definitely meager passive income. But, ehy, the majority of our pix are just from traveling around taking snapshots... I'm sure those who use models, studio space, and whatnot are earning quite a bit more.

Working Through Grief With Fabric

Since Kipper died, I've been on a fabric binge. We won't talk about the chocolate binging...no...none of that! I've been buying fabric. Lots of fabric. I think I'm up to about 10 different yardages. Most are patterned in retro floral, as shown above. My fav of the purchases has to be the poplin shown on the left. It's fresh, fun and big ass floral! I've really been taken by the dresses and tops shown at Anthropologie lately. Just gorgeous, young, fresh stuff! Of course it doesn't come even close to my size, so I've got to do what I've got to do...make my own of course. If you said "give up binging on chocolate," you were so very wrong. ;-) I really like the Uptown Paint By Number birdy fabric (the last one pictured), but not so sure it would work as a clothing option. We'll have to see on that.

To make room for all of this new finery, I've cleaned out my closets and have placed a whole heapin' load of stuff up for sale. You can see it ~here~. All told, three garbage bags full. Whee!

Spring is Sprouting

First, thanks to all who sent expresssions of sympathy for Kipper's passing. I haven't had an opportunity to email responses yet, so don't let my tardiness lead you to believe that I didn't appreciate your thoughts tremendously! I really do. Thanks again.

On to Spring and thoughts of renewal. The photo above is that of cinnamon basil sprouts. The weekend just before Kipper died, I started some seeds in a Jiffy Greenhouse. (I don't think it's related to Jiffy popcorn, but it acts as if it is when you start with little peat pots that blossom when wet. Good times.) The first bunch of 72 sprouts were pretty successful thus far. I've had a few seed varieties that haven't sprouted, but hopefully will soon. The seeds were a couple years old and may have gotten wet, so I'm not certain they were viable. In any event, I bought another Jiffy Greenhouse 'cuz the first one was so fun. (It brought back memories of Kindergarten's foam cup, dirt and pumpkin seed excitement.) So, the other day, I planted 72 more little Jiffy pots with seeds. And, no, I didn't stop there! I bought some seed starter mix and started seeds in egg cartons. I hope they'll end up being as successful as the Jiffy Greenhouse, but I have my doubts. I'll be doing a little "how to" page on this crud shortly. I've documented it in photos, so I'm half way there!

Anyway, gotta get back to work. Happy Spring, ya'll!